When do you celebrate an American holiday if you’re not in America? (Thanksgiving always falls on the 4th Thursday of November -a day that has come and gone in Singapore; it is now Friday morning.) Do you celebrate on the 4th Thursday in your local time zone, before everyone in the States, or do you celebrate with everyone in the States, meaning I should have switched up my traditional breakfast omelette for turkey, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin pie?

The answer for me is surprisingly neither. I think that before I left I had visions of gathering some fellow Americans, other expats, and Singaporeans together for a happy little international Thanksgiving and introducing the non-Americans to a very important part of our culture – pumpkin pie. Perhaps this was expected by those who know me as well, since I got an email wondering what sort of adventures I was going to encounter while trying to track down cranberry sauce.

This did not happen for a few reasons. First, I went to a Thanksgiving dinner sponsored by the Fulbright Association last Friday. So I already had my happy little international Thanksgiving complete with turkey, (Japanese) sweet potatoes, and pumpkin pie. There was cranberry sauce as well, but those dishes comprised the extent of the traditional Thanksgiving food. Nevertheless, I gave thanks that someone else had cooked the turkey.

I was also thankful I had attempted to make a pumpkin pie in a foreign country, because it turned out to be the only one. (How can you have Thanksgiving dinner without pumpkin pie?) Making the pie was a little bit of an adventure, but I’ll do pretty much anything for pumpkin – I’m a little obsessed with it. You know the character “Bubba” from Forrest Gump who loves shrimp? I’m him, just with pumpkin. There’s pumpkin bread, pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin soup, pumpkin ravioli, pumpkin oatmeal, pumpkin curry, pumpkin pie….right, I’m supposed to tell you about the pie, not declare my undying love for anything pumpkin.

How to Make a Pumpkin Pie in a Foreign Country (shortly after your arrival)

Bring cans of pumpkin and evaporated milk with you when you move, since you’re not sure of their availability in said country

Upon collecting your baggage, discover that your backpack is dripping an off-white liquid. Twenty-seven hours on a plane has made your brain foggy, so it takes you a little while to realize that it is evaporated milk, and so yes, it is coming from inside your bag. Open your bag to discover that one of the two cans you brought sustained a rather large puncture en route and has completely emptied into the bottom of your backpack. This was, of course, the bag you put assorted papers in, and they are now stuck together. The important thing, though, is that three cans of pumpkin and one can of evaporated milk remain intact.

Discover, on your first trip to a local grocery store, that both Libby’s canned pumpkin and evaporated milk are available.

Buy cinnamon, ginger, and cloves in Little India. You could have bought them in a grocery store, but they are cheaper, and presumably fresher, in Little India.

Hunt for a refrigerated pie shell, which you did not find in the local grocery store. Contemplate making some sort of cookie crust, but ultimately locate the appropriate pastry in Carrefour. Buy something to bake the pie in.

Get home and realize you need a can opener. And sugar. Return to Carrefour the next day, as it is the only place you know that will definitely have both items. Thankfully realize you also need to buy a mixing bowl before leaving the store.

Get home and head towards the oven to pre-heat it. Turn back towards the computer to google “375 degrees Fahrenheit in Celsius”

After selecting the temperature, stare confusedly at the settings knob – there are seven and they are depicted in hieroglyphics. Pick the one that looks like sun rays coming down at a pie-shaped object. (Other options include three small triangles, two horizontal lines, a thermometer with an up arrow, a lightbulb, a fan with three small triangles, and a fan with a plus sign.)

Take the pie shell out of the refrigerator and realize the instructions are in French. Dust the cobwebs off of your high-school and college French and attempt to translate. In between words you don’t know, gather that you are supposed to keep it at room temp for 10 minutes, unroll it, prick it with a fork, fill it with a filling of your choice, and bake it at a temperature lower than the pumpkin pie requires, for a shorter period of time than the pumpkin pie requires.

Make the pumpkin pie filling, pour it into the pie shell, and put it in the oven. (At the pie temperature, not the crust temperature.)

Lick the spoon. And the bowl. There are worse ways to die than Salmonella, especially if pie batter is involved.

Notice that the crust is browning very quickly, but the pie is still liquid. Borrow some of your roommate’s aluminum foil and attempt to cover the crust.

Have trouble concentrating on work for the next 40 minutes because your apartment smells delicious.

Take the pie out of the oven when it’s done. There isn’t enough time to let it cool completely, so wrap it in foil and then a towel in order to transport it to dinner.

Stare longingly at the pie throughout dinner and the post-dinner lecture. Observe that there are at least twenty people in the room and there is only one pumpkin pie.

When dessert-time is announced, stealthily maneuver yourself so you are near the front of the line. Rationalize that you need to make sure it is not poisonous, as you do not want to cause an international incident.

Eat, and enjoy.

While I gladly would have repeated this to consume more pie, there are two other reasons I did not coordinate my own Thanksgiving. First, it’s easy to forget it’s Thanksgiving. This is partly because I already had a pseudo-Thanksgiving dinner, but also because there are no external cues it’s Thanksgiving. There are no displays of canned pumpkin and cranberry sauce at the grocery store. There are no Publix (grocery store) commercials featuring animated salt and pepper shakers in the form of a pilgrim man and wife. There are no leaves falling to the ground – it’s 84 degrees outside and it feels like summer. If it weren’t for the food blogs I read and my friends’ facebook statuses, I probably would have forgotten.

Secondly, we’re busy. The 4th Thursday in November is not a holiday in Singapore. My friend Clayton actually had an exam. I had various visa-related errands to run before today, which is a holiday in Singapore. It’s Hari Raya Haji, the Malaysian name for the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha, which marks the end of the Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca), and commemorates the willingness of Ibrahim to sacrifice his son as an act of obedience to God. From what I’ve heard, there are no public festivities as the holiday involves praying and sacrificing sheep in a mosque. So unfortunately (or fortunately, as the case may be), I will not be participating in any related activities today.

However, I am organizing a Hawker Centre Stall Crawl for tomorrow, so I’ll be feasting in the spirit of Thanksgiving and Hari Raya Haji shortly. Rest assured that pictures of food you’ve never seen before are coming your way, but for now I leave you with the acknowledgement that I am thankful for you.

This is hilarious and great! I am in Singapore for a few weeks from California and came across your page while Googling “pie crust singapore” because I want to bake a pie here. It seems premade pie shells are really impossible to find along with the pie baking pan. My oven is exactly the same and I too will be Googling F to Celsius conversions. Thanks for the Carrefour tip! Will check it out.

I still can’t find Libby’s pumpkin pie filling in Singapore??? where is it available?? I am a Chef and own a restaurant and I have suppliers that haven’t imported the Libby’s Pumpkin product for the past 2 years??

I saw it when I first arrived at the supermarket near the Clementi MRT. It might only have been a seasonal item – I would have been there in mid-late November. (Or maybe those cans were 2 years old.) Hope you’re able to find it!